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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24692155">Dissonance</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/by_nina/pseuds/by_nina'>by_nina</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Royai Week 2020 [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood &amp; Manga</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, F/M, POV rewrite, Promised Day, Promised Day!Royai, Romance, Scene Rewrite</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 08:34:28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>946</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24692155</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/by_nina/pseuds/by_nina</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>She hopes that they don't hear the desperation in her voice, the plea for him to come back, the fear that she is losing the man she loves to his own flame. Day 4 - Crackle for Royai Week 2020.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Riza Hawkeye/Roy Mustang</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Royai Week 2020 [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1779925</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>31</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Dissonance</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is a POV rewrite of Roy's most destructive moment in the series, written about the sounds Riza hears as it happens.</p><p>I wanted to finally write something light for Royai Week this year, but Promised Day!Royai is way too good to pass up. I promise to go easy on them for Day 5.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The tunnels turn dark for a moment as Riza hits the ground. There is nothing but sound, too much of it—the stone bricks breaking beneath her, the raucous gloating of the homunculus Envy, even her own heartbeat as she slips away for a moment.</p><p>A snap, a blaze, Envy’s cry of pain, and her own strained voice calling for the Colonel. She hears his slow, careful footsteps—she would recognize them anywhere. And then he speaks, and all the sweltering heat in the tunnels turns into an ominous chill.</p><p>“<em>What in the </em>hell<em> are you doing to my Lieutenant?”</em></p><p>The inferno is in his voice as well.</p><p>Riza sits up and regains the rest of her senses. The Colonel appears into view; amid her terror she knows it’s him at last and not some shapeshifting monster, but <em>what in the world is this? Who are you?</em></p><p>“Don’t interfere, Lieutenant.” His voice remains unfamiliar, unforgiving. “I told you I would take care of him myself.”</p><p>She has known Roy longer than she knows anyone else. She knows his voice and how it normally crackles with the warmth of a hearth, how it can become as soft as candlelight when he calls her by name. But she doesn’t know the man in front of her, neither by sight nor by sound. His voice has never burned with this much hatred—not when he destroyed the homunculus Lust, not in the immediate aftermath of Hughes’ death—and it terrifies her more than anything she has faced with him.</p><p>The flames begin erupting again, and the homunculus screams in agony and the Colonel roars as furiously as the inferno he creates. He becomes less and less like himself, and Riza fears he may shatter before the tunnels can even collapse around them, and suddenly it’s over. The brief silence is broken again when the homunculus crawls out of their human body as a small, crying, ugly green thing. He approaches the homunculus, and Riza watches with bated breath.</p><p>He speaks again. Her heart breaks at the venomous sound.</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>“Now burn in hell!”</em>
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <em>Click.</em>
</p><p>Riza doesn’t know when she got back on her feet, or when she approached him, or when she pulled out her gun and pointed it at his head. When she speaks, she remains clear and steady, even as the fire in his voice flares up with a command—no, a <em>threat</em>—and then the homunculus screams with Edward and Scar’s arrival.</p><p>His voice turns level when he speaks to Edward, but it’s clear that the fire hasn’t gone away. It grows, and then it bursts again, and Edward yells back:</p><p>“Is that what you want to be, Colonel? <strong><em>Another monster?!</em></strong>”</p><p>Scar’s much calmer voice surprises her. He isn’t angry so much as he is disappointed and disgusted.</p><p>“Are you becoming a beast, giving in to its passion?”</p><p>The fire flickers for a moment. Scar continues:</p><p>“I shudder to think what a world created by a man held captive by his own hate would create!”</p><p>Roy’s resolve crackles at last. Riza speaks to him again, and before long she begins to tremble. She hopes that they don’t hear the desperation in her words, the plea for him to come back, the fear that she is losing the man she loves to his own flame.</p><p>“You’re better,” she whispers. “I know you’re better than that.”</p><p>She can hear him struggle as the fire recedes. It turns inwards, no longer fueled by hate and destruction, but by grief and longing and loss. He hasn’t truly let himself feel the gravity of Hughes’ death until now. She wants to save him from it, but it is a fire she cannot reach, a fire that only he can extinguish.</p><p>For a moment, it seems that he has given in to it.</p><p>“If you’re going to shoot me, shoot me.”</p><p>His voice is empty now, hollowed out by exhaustion. “But then, after you’ve done that, Lieutenant, what will you do?”</p><p>Only then does Riza realize how much the fire has burned through her as well. Everything around them seems to disappear for a moment; Edward, Scar, Envy, even the tunnels and the battle that is surely being fought above them. She keeps her hand outstretched, not for the gun pointed at him, but in the hope of still reaching Roy.</p><p>“I can tell you I have no intention of carrying on by myself.”</p><p>Riza allows herself as much honesty as possible in the company of others. It is her last chance to find him and pull him out of the embers now.</p><p>“Once this is over, I’m going to end my life,” she continues, and the hateful fire is inside her for a moment, “and remove the secrets of flame alchemy from the world.”</p><p>She sees a spark—a brief flash of fear and anguish in him—and for a moment he tries to contain it, but he snaps. He swings his hand in the direction of a dark, empty tunnel to his right, and out comes a spectacular final burst of that frightening fire from the depths of him.</p><p>“That can’t happen.”</p><p>The flame continues to burn in the empty space, but at last she hears it. The hearth that welcomes her back home to a Roy she knows.</p><p>“I can’t afford to lose you.”</p><p>Roy speaks to the men before him, and then he turns to her. His hand is warm and soft when he takes hers and lowers it along with her gun. His knees give way. Soon, she falls onto her knees as well, face to face with him.</p><p>“Please forgive me.”</p><p>At last, he is candlelight again.</p>
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